the United Party for National Development (UPND) was granted leave to apply for judicial review by the Ndola High Court in respect of the Electoral Commission of Zambia not allocating time on the mentioned media to political parties and independent candidates to canvass support of the voters. The Court stated that the prescription of airtime on public media to all political parties and independent candidates was highly necessary to enable all players’ equal campaign opportunities8. Again, during a visit to Zambia during the quarter, Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the Africa Union and Head of the United Nations Office to the Africa Union, Hanna Tetteh called for state-owned media to be accessible to all political parties in view of the suspension of public rallies. The envoy said during a meeting she held with various stakeholders, it was observed that state-owned media were not equitably accessible to all political parties9. The issue of public media (specifically ZNBC) and equal allotment of coverage to all political players beyond the ruling party and government has been topical for a long time10, once culminating into promulgation of and amendments to the ZNBC Act to include a clear editorial mandate and board appointment process that would reflect the general diversity of the Zambian society11. For example, Section 7 (1) of the ZNBC Act No. 20 of 2002 (later amended by Act No. 16 of 2010) establishes the following selected functions of the Corporation: provide varied and balanced programming for all sections of the populations; serve the public interest; (e) contribute to the development of free and informed opinions and as such, constitute an important element of the democratic process (f) reflect, as comprehensively as possible, the range of opinions and political, philosophical, religious, scientific, and artistic trends; (m) broadcast news and current affairs programmes which shall be comprehensive, unbiased and independent and commentary which shall be clearly distinguished from news; It is no wonder that there were calls from various stakeholders in the quarter under review for fair coverage, especially in the wake of the 2021 general elections slated for August 12th. The argument behind public media serving a wide section of society is based on their very establishment as a public good. This mainly emanates from the fact that public media are funded from public funds collected through general governmental revenues or special income through television levies and grants for example. Secondly, public broadcasting by its nomenclature demands that there should be a wide reach and variety in programming with inclusivity. 8 As reported in the Daily Nation Newspaper of 11th June, 2021. The Party sought a declaration that ECZ abrogated its responsibility under section 8 of the Electoral Code of Conduct to prescribe airtime to all public television, radio and print media for the benefit of all participating political parties and independent candidates for the forthcoming national polls scheduled for the August 12, 2021 elections. 9 See the report carried in the News Diggers Newspaper of 7th June, 2021: https://diggers.news/local/2021/06/07/stateowned-media-must-accomodate-all-political-parties-un-envoy/ 10 For example, some of the media monitoring findings in the MISA Election Content Status Report (May-June, 2021) under the Voter’s Voice Project show that The coverage by the public broadcaster towards the ruling PF was more than half of the combined coverage of all the opposition parties inclusive of the UPND. 11 The campaign for media reforms, specifically the enactment of the IBA and ZNBC Acts among others is detailed by renowned scholar and legal practitioner Dr Patrick Matibini (currently speaker of the National Assembly): Matibini, P. (2006). The struggle for media law reforms in Zambia. Lusaka: MISA. State of the Media in Zambia 7